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Senator LaFollette: Have the members of your association or any member of your association complained that you suppressed important news?

Mr. Stone: Oh, yes, sir, we have had that for years.

Senator LaFollette: That you have colored news?

Mr. Stone: No, sir, I do not think anybody has ever said that. Well, I don't know about that. We have had complaints on all sides.

This is the Committee on Finance of the United States Senate, holding hearings on the subject of reciprocity with Canada (Senate Document 56, Sixty-second Congress, First Session, Vol. II). The newspapers of the country want a clause by which they can get free paper-pulp from Canada; so the Associated Press sends out full reports of the testimony of newspaper publishers before the Senate Committee. But when certain farmers appear and oppose the reciprocity scheme—listen to Senator McCumber, questioning Herman Ridder, a director of the Associated Press:

How do you account for the fact, which every senator here must have noticed, that while these farmers were giving their testimony the reporters of the Associated Press leaned back in their chairs day after day scarcely taking a note, and that the moment any man came forward to give testimony in favor of this bill every pencil came out and every pad was on the table and all of our good friends were studiously at work? And that has been the case all through these hearings.

And again:

It is a notorious fact that we have been able to get but one side of the question before the public so far as these hearings are concerned.

Also, consider the testimony brought out by the Senate Committee on the Judiciary (sixty-third Congress, First Session, Senate Resolution 92, Vol. II). It appears that the head of the Sugar Trust had issued a long statement, advocating free raw sugar, and this press-agent material had been sent out in full by the Associated Press. The senators question Melville E. Stone, to find out why, and they cannot even get the name of the Associated Press correspondent who handled the material! It is brought out that the beet sugar interests of the West, which are fighting the Sugar Trust, have made bitter complaint concerning this article, and have been to the head of the Denver office of the Associated Press to demand that their side too shall be given a hearing. You